Telehealth and in-person training outcomes for novice discrete trial training therapists

The efficacy and efficiency of telehealth and in-person training were compared while teaching seven undergraduate students to implement components of discrete trial training. A multiple-baseline design across skills with elements of multiple probe and delayed multiple baseline combined with an alternating-treatments design was used to evaluate the effects of behavioral skills training (BST) on (a) implementing a multiple stimulus without replacement preference assessment, (b) setting up an instructional context, (c) delivering antecedent prompts, and (d) delivering consequences for accurate and inaccurate responding. Two skills were trained via telehealth and two skills were trained in-person using BST procedures with a mock student. All participants provided high acceptability ratings for both training procedures. Results also showed that telehealth training was as efficacious and efficient as in-person training for all skills across all participants. Five of six participants showed high levels of maintenance of the newly acquired skills; these five also exhibited the skills during a novel instructional task.